TW for misgendering CBS soap reveals character is transgender“On soap operas everybody ha

TW for misgendering CBS soap reveals character is transgender“On soap operas everybody has secrets, but The Bold and the Beautiful’s popular Maya Avant has a new one.Turns out, she was born a man. <- Seriously USAToday, WTF? NOT cool. Get a clue.Not shocked? Well, join the crowd.Transgender characters (and sometimes actors who play them) are suddenly everywhere in pop culture — they’re so mainstream they can even turn up on CBS’ long-running daytime drama with a blast of proud network publicity.The 28-year-old soap revealed in Wednesday’s episode that Maya, a model now dating Rick Forrester, transitioned from male to female at a young age, after her sister confronted her with her birth certificate.The network says B&B is the only current show on broadcast or cable TV to include a transgender character as part of the regular cast.It’s not likely to be the last.Non-trans actress and soap veteran Karla Mosley, 33, who’s played Maya for more than two years, is thrilled with the development. When she was told after Christmas that Maya had a secret, this wasn’t the first thing that popped into her head.“My first reaction was surprise, because 10 or 20 years ago, this is not a story we would be telling, and not in a way that’s truthful and not sensational,” Mosley says.“My second reaction was, ‘Thank you.’ It’s a gift it’s a privilege,” she says. “It’s a real opportunity to educate our viewers here and all over the world.”Bradley Bell, executive producer and head writer, says the story the soap is telling is about love and tolerance.“It is about people respecting other people’s differences and their uniqueness,” he says in a statement. “In the end, we all want to be loved, and in order to love someone else you first have to love yourself. If you are transgender, gay, straight, it doesn’t matter. It’s about finding love in life. This is a love story.”Maya is not the first trans character on a soap, says Adams. In 1995, ABC’s The City included transgender character Azure (Carlotta Chang), who was a fashion model. In 2005, ABC’s All My Children introduced glam-rocker Zarf (Jeffrey Carlson), who later came out as a trans woman, took the name Zoe, and fell in love with Bianca Montgomery.Read the full piece herePhoto: Giles ToucasHey USA Today! I’ve got some mandatory reading for your writing staff. For f*cks sake, use the web and read how to write about transgender people. This took me three seconds to Google. Don’t sacrifice an entire community out of laziness and ignorance (at best) or prejudice and bigotry at worst.GLAAD Media Reference Guide - Transgender IssuesProblematic: “biologically male,” “biologically female,” “genetically male,” “genetically female,” “born a man,” “born a woman”Preferred: assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth or designated male at birth, designated female at birth. Problematic phrases like those above are reductive and overly-simplify a very complex subject. As mentioned above, a person’s sex is determined by a number of factors - not simply genetics - and one’s biology does not “trump” one’s gender identity. Finally, people are born babies - they are not “born a man” or “born a woman."  -- source link

More pics about